Like its portable device, which requires an $89 deposit to get 500MB of free mobile data over WiMAX, this new device (also with an $89 deposit) will offer 1GB of free data in nearly all of the 80 largest urban markets across the United States. Both devices can be returned for a full refund of the deposit within the first year of use. However, during the pre-sales period, the company considers the new Hub Burst as a purchase, not a deposit.

“You’ll get speeds of 9 to 12Mbps when it’s fully optimized,” FreedomPop’s CEO Stephen Stokols told Ars, saying that it would be comparable to DSL.

If users want more data on their Hub Burst device, they can take advantage of the company's freemium model, and pay around $10 per month for 10GB of access—significantly less than what most Americans pay for broadband access. The new router will act as both a wired and wireless router (including one Ethernet connection).

Disrupting DSL

Stokols declined to say how many users the company has so far, but he noted that increased demand had allowed the company to speed up its home wireless coverage by nine months.

“We had planned for six months of inventory, and it was gone after two months,” he told Ars.

FreedomPop, as we reported earlier, is backed by Atomico, a venture capital firm founded by Niklas Zennström (the Swedish co-founder of Skype). Just like Skype, the company hopes to significantly shakeup the residential Internet access and mobile data market—the latter is worth $80 billion alone this year alone.

The company contracts with Clearwire to bring 4G data access, but plans on expanding to LTE via Sprint’s network.

Obstacles afoot

However, some analysts have expressed concern that FreedomPop is facing an uphill battle.

“I can see this being a disruptor for mobile hotspot based carrier revenues but not necessarily disruptor for text in-home connectivity,” Chris Silva, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, told Ars. “I think the latter is a very small market in comparison to what they claim to be disrupting.”

He seemed to indicate that if FreedomPop does switch over to LTE, then that may create a different scenario.

Clearwire’s footprint may not be large or fast enough for most users. (Full disclosure: I bought a portable hotspot from FreedomPop, which I use occasionally—while it works great in Oakland, up the road in Berkeley there is very little service.)

“Given the coverage of Clearwire's network today, I won't be surprised if FreedomPop suffers from negative reactions among customers who are dissatisfied with the quality of the service they get,” Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester research, told Ars.

Chetan Sharma, an independent telecom analyst, echoed this sentiment.

"For consumers who stay below the average and don’t need high speeds (don’t watch Netflix, games etc.), this is a good offer," he told Ars. "For consumers who do decent amount of streaming because of lower speeds and lower caps, the offer is not that attractive as it will hurt both the experience and the pocketbook."

Promoted Comments

I fail to see the point of any hotspot, home or mobile, that provides only 1GB of data but there is a more important point here. I continue to see more and more services like this spring up and always wonder how they can ever be profitable if the the nations two largest wireless carriers are 'struggling' to handle the demands of their networks to the point where, in order to 'keep up with demand', they had to switch to a tiered data structure. This implies that they were not able to handle the load of their networks prior to the tiered structure, however, the appearance of all of these start-ups who sell an identical, if not superior, product speaks to the contrary. Not only are the major wireless carriers able to profit dramatically from their new plans, they are able to sell their available bandwidth to multiple companies and enable them to share the bandwidth that their customers previously paid less to use and had unfiltered access to. In other words, the big carriers are able to profit twice from the same 'product' they previously sold with the only cost to their customers being less service for more money.

41 Reader Comments

It seems like a device like this would be great as a personal backup. If there is a power or internet outage at home one could fire up the FreedomPop router (assuming you get Clear service in your area) and still be able to go online.

It's hard to compete with free even if the service is slow and limited. While there is certainly a market for very basic connectivity, given that the company has a large incentive to upsell users in order to make any revenue, I suspect in the future we'll see the free bandwidth getting shrunken, throttled or prey to high overage charges.

As a Sprint subsciber who's used both their WiMAX 4G (Clearwire's network) and their own in-house LTE, I'm interested, but I'd rather wait for the LTE devices. While Clearwire's network was faster than Sprint's 3G, I still only averaged about 750kbps on a typical day, while sitting half a block from the nearest tower. Where it's available, Sprint's LTE can keep pace with my mid-tier cable internet at home -- and I'm willing to bet it'll go out less often than TWC does.

But I don't think anyone use it as their primary internet connection, since those data limits kinda suck (10GB isn´t much). What they do however is to throttle you to 200Kb/sec if you break your limit. No nasty fines. That means that I just purchased the smallest cap, since 200Kb/sec is just fine for what I use my Nexus 7 for.

I fail to see the point of any hotspot, home or mobile, that provides only 1GB of data but there is a more important point here. I continue to see more and more services like this spring up and always wonder how they can ever be profitable if the the nations two largest wireless carriers are 'struggling' to handle the demands of their networks to the point where, in order to 'keep up with demand', they had to switch to a tiered data structure. This implies that they were not able to handle the load of their networks prior to the tiered structure, however, the appearance of all of these start-ups who sell an identical, if not superior, product speaks to the contrary. Not only are the major wireless carriers able to profit dramatically from their new plans, they are able to sell their available bandwidth to multiple companies and enable them to share the bandwidth that their customers previously paid less to use and had unfiltered access to. In other words, the big carriers are able to profit twice from the same 'product' they previously sold with the only cost to their customers being less service for more money.

The company contracts with Clearwire to bring 4G data access, but plans on expanding to LTE via Sprint’s network.

I read yesterday (link coming soon, maybe) that Sprint is now buying the remaining 49.x% of Clearwire that they didn't already own. That's only relevant here if it effects coverage and service availability for FreedomPop - about which I have no idea, but I suppose that it might be a factor in their deployment and/or expansion plans.

I wonder if you could use this for security systems. The only reason I have a land line is due to the security system requirement. If so, that would be awesome because my security company charges $30/mo to use cellular.

1GB? I use that in a few HOOURS at home. I've averaging 250-300GB a month, and I'm only on 6mbit DSL. Even if I cut out streaming video (which we've only been doing for the last year or so), just my normal home operation is over 75GB a month. I pay only $19.99, flat with tax included and no dryline fees. I have no data cap. (though above 150GB they send me a polite "warning" notice, which I've gotten every month for 3 years with no action against me, including months I passed 500GB throughput).

Hell, last night alone, loading up my new iPhone, I downloaded over 10GB, and my wife uploaded 3-4GB in new images from a party this past weekend. My EMAIL VOLUME ALONE is over 1GB a month for shit's sake!

Hell, last night alone, loading up my new iPhone, I downloaded over 10GB, and my wife uploaded 3-4GB in new images from a party this past weekend. My EMAIL VOLUME ALONE is over 1GB a month for shit's sake!

I'm dying for a product like this. The whole concept of a pay-as-you-go, use it anywhere service is really what I need for my limited travels. I'm going frequently to see a sick relative who does not have or want Internet service of any kind. I'm limited to either smartphone, borrowing a 4G Hotspot from work or paying extra for tethering (which should not even be a thing, IMHO.) I just need enough Internet to get by, but don't want to set up a Comcast account, pay their install and disconnect fees, pay for a WiFi Router, etc.

I have fast wired Internet at home, and that *does* make sense for me to pay ~$50/month. That's where I'm typically going to use the most bandwidth. I don't need to double that expense, nor do I have the desire to add my own hotspot service to my cellular account. Their costs remain inaccessible except to business and the wealthy. I have no desire to ever go wireless for home service, but that doesn't preclude use cases like this. I can also see this for people who have rental properties/vacation homes or some other reason to set up shop in two locations.

In metering, I typically use 3-5 GB/mo of mobile data when in a situation like I've been in. I can do $90 up front and $10 each month it's used. That's a tiny fraction of a 4G hotspot's cost or the cost of adding cable modem service.

1GB? I use that in a few HOOURS at home. I've averaging 250-300GB a month, and I'm only on 6mbit DSL. Even if I cut out streaming video (which we've only been doing for the last year or so), just my normal home operation is over 75GB a month. I pay only $19.99, flat with tax included and no dryline fees. I have no data cap. (though above 150GB they send me a polite "warning" notice, which I've gotten every month for 3 years with no action against me, including months I passed 500GB throughput).

Hell, last night alone, loading up my new iPhone, I downloaded over 10GB, and my wife uploaded 3-4GB in new images from a party this past weekend. My EMAIL VOLUME ALONE is over 1GB a month for shit's sake!

Would you flame a maker of children's clothing for not making pants in your size? Would you inform us all of YOUR size, count the clothes in your closet for us, and list each item's manufacturer and price? Sometimes we just have to be realistic and understand that we're not a member of any particular target market or audience. So it doesn't work for you. We get that, and many of us may be in the same boat. Bummer for us. But really, such posts seem quite pointless, even marginally trollish. There's obviously a market for the product and the associated services. If you can trash them on technical grounds, go for it.

This is actually awesome for small/embedded systems or as backup connectivity. Instead of shelling out mondo bucks for something like a GSM Arduino shield, you can use this for low bandwidth data logging applications.

Not to mention security or network monitoring systems that typically have a cellular connection for emergency notifications.

As a power user who regularly sees 150-300 gigs used per month at home this wouldn't work at all for me but I might be recommending it to some relatives. I've got FreedomPop's mobile hotspot as a backup to my mobile data plan and while it's nice having the extra 500 megs I find the speed and coverage quite lacking. If it wasn't a refundable deposit for the device I certainly wouldn't recommend it. As it is refundable though, I've been a big fan, poor speed and coverage don't bother me when the price is the interest I would've earned on 90 bucks in the bank. But that's as a backup device and to let me get away with a lower tier of service from my mobile provider.

Even if I wasn't a heavy internet user at home I'd think that FreedomPop would really need to make sure they only allow signups from people deep inside the coverage zone for the home service. Having a flakey connection as your primary internet connection isn't even worth free in my opinion. I'll probably end up taking my mobile hotspot over to various relatives' places to see how the coverage is at their homes before recommending the home service.

So many people complain what's the point of so little data. I'll tell you exactly what the point is, there is a market for this. I have a mobile hotspot on my T-Mobile account that my mother uses for her primary internet at home. It gets 2GB a month of data and she on average only uses 200MB of it! This is a great product for older people (or anyone) who only has occasional internet use. With how expensive cable and DSL are they become impractical for light use.

Some people have expressed concerns about why you would want 1GB of data. I would like this for my MagicJack. I could make a lot of calls per month and it would cost me roughly 1 dollar per month. Also I could do light browsing with it.

So many people complain what's the point of so little data. I'll tell you exactly what the point is, there is a market for this. I have a mobile hotspot on my T-Mobile account that my mother uses for her primary internet at home. It gets 2GB a month of data and she on average only uses 200MB of it! This is a great product for older people (or anyone) who only has occasional internet use. With how expensive cable and DSL are they become impractical for light use.

Beat me to it. If this was available in her area, I might be able to get internet in Mom's house again. She's convinced herself that she doesn't "want' a computer when hers dies because--i figure--she doesn't want to pay for internet service. Bills are that much bigger a big deal once you retire.

I work for an ISP and sometimes our sales team downright makes me feel sick. Why are we pushing 10meg service to people--and hiking up the price--who only check their email twice a week?

Nice idea; put all that vacant WiMAX capacity to use, wring a few more bucks out of it before it comes off the towers, accrue sufficient cash and customer base to swing a good deal on LTE for when WiMAX finally dies, hope for the best!

I'm reminded of the way the religious broadcasters soaked up low-cost Ku-band satellite feeds in the 80s and 90s in order to sling their signal worldwide. Turned out pretty well.

It's hard to compete with free even if the service is slow and limited. While there is certainly a market for very basic connectivity, given that the company has a large incentive to upsell users in order to make any revenue, I suspect in the future we'll see the free bandwidth getting shrunken, throttled or prey to high overage charges.

If they're using Clearwire's WiMAX, free is way too expensive given the service where I live. (It's too bad, too, because I'd dearly love to fire AT&T.)

This will be very great for infrequent travelers who need internet in a pinch and do not like getting gypped by airport or some hotels that want to charge you $10+ for internet use! Virgin mobile turn off your 3G data if you try to tether without paying for tethering (such a rip off). This will be great for me. Yeah, I'd have to let them hold $90 for a while, but that's small fish.

I use a moble hotspot from Verizon. The service is horrible but I get unlimited data for $60/mo. I occasionally hit 60gb a month and generally under 30gb. The last few months I have been hovering around 20gb.

Considering Verizon would have me pay upwards of $580/mo on their current plans this is a breath of fresh air.

Sadly the nearest Sprint/Clearwire area is 50 miles away.

Also $1/gb ($10/10gb) is priced just right. $10/gb is ridiculous. As far as the carriers losing money, that is just false. They should have taken their massive profits and expanded their backbones and capacity instead of paying huge bonuses to CEO's and management.

Besides, given that most people who pay for data plans barely use 2gb of it, they have plenty of profit to go around.

Sprint already owns more than half of Clearwire, so the deal to buy it all may be inconsequential. In any case ,Clearwire is in the process of changing their WiMax service over to LTE (they will get more aggressive next year, assuming they can come up with the cash).

So where does that leave users of this device? They may find their WiMax disappear one day. Then what? Do they get a new device for free? Or are they out another $89?

I fail to see the point of any hotspot, home or mobile, that provides only 1GB of data

90+% of my time is spent either at work or at home where I have access to WiFi. For the remainder, I can live without YouTube/etc. The 500 MB/month I get on the FreedomPop mobile hotspot is plenty for the things that I do care about in that time (checking email, web browsing).

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I continue to see more and more services like this spring up and always wonder how they can ever be profitable if the the nations two largest wireless carriers are 'struggling' to handle the demands of their networks to the point where, in order to 'keep up with demand', they had to switch to a tiered data structure. This implies that they were not able to handle the load of their networks prior to the tiered structure, however, the appearance of all of these start-ups who sell an identical, if not superior, product speaks to the contrary.

You do realize that these services that are springing up are using WiMax which currently is really, really cheap because infrastructure was already set up and paid for but everybody's abandoning it in favor of LTE, right?

Can anyone explain to me the difference between the original portable wireless hotspot and this new home wireless connection? They both appear to be using the same WiMAX technology and can be taken with you where ever you go. Is it only the size of the modem/router or do they somehow artificially limit you to you home address.

I wonder if you could use this for security systems. The only reason I have a land line is due to the security system requirement. If so, that would be awesome because my security company charges $30/mo to use cellular.

Most burglars today cut phone lines before they rob houses for that very reason. It's simple to do, and defeats a large majority of security systems.

I wonder if you could use this for security systems. The only reason I have a land line is due to the security system requirement. If so, that would be awesome because my security company charges $30/mo to use cellular.

Most burglars today cut phone lines before they rob houses for that very reason. It's simple to do, and defeats a large majority of security systems.

The system we had installed earlier this year uses the phone line as it's primary call home method, but if it is unavailable for whatever reason, it has a built in cellular modem for redundancy.

I fail to see the point of any hotspot, home or mobile, that provides only 1GB of data but there is a more important point here. I continue to see more and more services like this spring up and always wonder how they can ever be profitable if the the nations two largest wireless carriers are 'struggling' to handle the demands of their networks to the point where, in order to 'keep up with demand', they had to switch to a tiered data structure. This implies that they were not able to handle the load of their networks prior to the tiered structure, however, the appearance of all of these start-ups who sell an identical, if not superior, product speaks to the contrary. Not only are the major wireless carriers able to profit dramatically from their new plans, they are able to sell their available bandwidth to multiple companies and enable them to share the bandwidth that their customers previously paid less to use and had unfiltered access to. In other words, the big carriers are able to profit twice from the same 'product' they previously sold with the only cost to their customers being less service for more money.

It is simple:1) the nations two largest wireless carriers are, um, speaking from the perspective of their own interests.2) there are two more national carriers who have different interests. They are more worried about securing enough revenue to finance the substantial fixed costs of maintaining or expanding rheir footprint and continuing to upgrade their network speeds to remain or increace their competitiveness. As part of that effort, Sprint is wholesaling their network at attractive rates to a range of resellers who hope to find a niche that is either profitable, or desirable enough to a larger player to make them an acquisition target.3) many companies make a majority of their profit from a minority of their customer base.

It isnt hard for me to imagine an offerering like this finding a profitable niche. Not everyone has torrents running 24/7, or gets most of their entertainment from streaming services. There are a lot of people who's primary Internet access method is their phone. They may have a laptop, or an old desktop that they use sometimes, but not enough for it to make sense to pay for cable or DSL every month, particularly if they are students, or otherwise living a itinerant existance. 10GB a month for $10 gives them internet access at home from a computer or a cheap WiFi tablet when they need it, which isnt bad for them, and it isnt bad for the reseller either, because the user may only use a fraction of their limit in an average month, and once they go over and have to buy another 10GB, chances are even that they dont use more than half of it.